Wounded (An Aspen Series Novella) (Prequel to Relentless) (3 page)

He nodded and headed around the side of the
house, greeting relatives as he went.  It would be good to see his brothers,
but he had a ways to go before his severed calf muscle would be healed well
enough to withstand a rough game of football.

*        *        *

His mother had spared no expense, buying steaks
for everyone.  She’d made his favorite potato salad, and he’d eaten so much
chocolate cake he thought he might puke.  Thankfully, beyond the first greetings,
dinner wasn’t the emotional ordeal he’d feared.  A few asked about his
experiences, but everyone accepted what he was prepared to tell them and didn’t
press for any of the sordid details.

Hours later, when the sun rested on the horizon
and most of his extended family had gone home, his mother finally managed to
get him alone.

He’d carried some of the dishes into the kitchen
and was taking a break from the family by using the excuse of washing
silverware and platters as a way to get a few moments alone.

The sound of his mother chuckling startled him.  He
turned to find her standing in the kitchen doorway with both hands on her hips.

“I’m starting to wonder if they really sent my
son home, or if you’re one of those science fiction implants who looks like him,
but isn’t.”  His mother approached.  “You’ve never washed a dish without thirty
minutes of nagging beforehand.”

Jerry rinsed the bowl and set it to the side.  “I
guess people change.”  He picked up a platter and began washing it, the
melancholy of being home finally overtaking him.

“I guess people do.”  The teasing look on her
face dropped along with the tone of her voice.  She bumped her hip against him,
taking the platter from his hands.  “I’ll wash.  You rinse.”

He bumped her back.  “Fine, but next time I slack
on washing you can’t get mad.”  It felt good to be able to let his guard down
and know that his mom wouldn’t freak out.  “You had your chance.”

She lifted a sassy, teasing brow.  “I don’t care
if you’re a hardened old soldier.  I’m still your mama, and you’ll do what I
say.”

A smile crept across his lips.  “Yes, ma’am.”

They washed dishes in silence for a few minutes
giving him time to appreciate the simple task and letting its simplicity help
to heal him.

“Why didn’t you come home sooner, son?”  His mom
kept her eyes on the dishwater, but he knew she expected an answer.

“I couldn’t.”

“I don’t see why not.  They have a V.A. hospital
in Salt Lake.  You would have been closer to home, and I could have visited.”

It had taken him a good four months to heal from
his wound and complete the therapy necessary to allow him to walk normally again. 
“I just couldn’t.”

“Because you didn’t want her to see you wounded? 
Because you were afraid she’d see you as less of a man?”

Damn.  He’d never figured out how his mom could
read him so well, but she did.  “It had nothing to do with her.  I felt like I
could heal better without all of you fussing over me.”

“Uh-huh.”  She handed another bowl to him.

He wanted to tell her to mind her own business,
but that would be admitting she was right.  “Why didn’t you tell me she’d
dumped Eric?”

“Would it have made a difference?”

He shrugged.

She lifted a dishtowel from the counter and wiped
her hands.  “You had enough to deal with, okay?  You’d already taken damage to
your heart.  You had enough healing to do between that and your leg.  What if I
had
told you about her?  Then you would have gotten your hopes up.  If
she spurned you again, what would that have done to you?  A man can only heal so
much at a time.”

He swallowed and then nodded.

A crushing look of sympathy fell over her
features, and she tugged him close to her.  “Oh honey.  I’m sorry.  I honestly
didn’t know what to do.  I figured if she wanted to tell you, then she would. 
If she didn’t, then you were better off not knowing.  I know how much you love
her—”

“Loved,” he corrected.

“Okay, loved,” his mom reluctantly agreed.  “But
still, now that you’re home and doing much better, the two of you can take some
time to figure things out.  Sometimes, being apart from each other makes people
in love do stupid things.  They start to doubt, and...”

“No.”  He hugged his mom one more time before he
pulled away.  “The past is the past.  She had her chance, and she made her
choice.  I’m done.”  He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that the day he’d
gotten the break-up email from Kimber was the same day they’d been caught in
the booby trap.  He still wondered if he hadn’t been so focused on his loss if
he would have noticed something was wrong.  Maybe he could have spared some of
his friends.  Maybe Tim wouldn’t have had to give his life to protect Jerry
from most of the shrapnel that had sliced apart his friend.  He blinked away
the haunting image, wishing he could bury it deeper in his subconscious.

“Whatever you say.  You know you have my support.”

“Thanks, Mom.”  He scrubbed a hand over the
whiskers on his face.  He knew he couldn’t blame Kimber for what had happened—it
had been an unforeseen event, but he found it damn hard to separate the two.  “If
you don’t mind, I’m going to take a shower and unpack.  I told the guys I’d
meet them later at Sparrow’s.”

“Sure.  You could probably use some guy time
after being smothered by your family.”

He laughed, and she swatted him with a dishtowel.

“Hey, you said it.  Not me.”

*        *        *

When Jerry arrived at Sparrow’s for the second
time that day, the parking lot was much fuller than before.  He parked his
shiny black Camaro out on the street.  He preferred not to get door-dinged by
some drunken bastard who was hopefully not driving, but climbing into the
passenger seat.

Inside, he found Luke and Milo sitting at a large
table in a corner with three empty chairs waiting to be taken.  The lights were
dimmer than they’d been earlier in the day, and scents of grilled steaks and
hamburgers filled the air.  Customers who perched on stools lined the bar, and
the pulse of Sparrow’s had been kicked up a notch.

“Did you survive?” Milo asked over a song heavy
with the sounds of southern rock.

Jerry laughed.  “Apparently.”  He nodded at the
waitress, asking for a pitcher of beer when she arrived.

“Planning on going heavy-duty tonight, huh?” Luke
asked.

“Yep.  I have some serious beer drinking to catch
up on.  It’s a little harder to go down to the local tavern and suck a few suds
in the desert.”  Besides, he preferred party demons to the darker ones lurking
in his soul.

“I hear ya,” Milo agreed.  “We definitely have
some celebrating to do.  We’ve got it all arranged.  If we get too shit-faced,
Luke’s brother agreed to give us a ride home.”

Luke nodded as he held up his beer.  “To the
brave men who fight for our country.”

Jerry smiled and lifted his glass.  All three
clinked and drank.

“Are you driving in the derby tomorrow?” Milo
asked.

“I don’t know.”  Every year since he’d turned
sixteen, Jerry had entered an old beater car in the Fourth of July derby.  “Car’s
been sitting for a while.  Not sure I can get her ready in time.”

“You got us.”  Luke thumbed his chest.  “We’ll
get that mother in shape if you want.”

After he’d been hit, Jerry had promised himself
if he ever made it back alive, he would live each day to the fullest.  “Why the
hell not?”  No time like the present.

The live band cranked through two more songs
before Scott and Tyler arrived.

“Damn, it’s like old-home week around here,”
Scott said as he gave Jerry a slap on the back.  With his dark hair, eyes and
goatee, he looked like the badass of the bunch.  Once upon a time, he’d
actually owned the title, but he’d cleaned up his act since then and now owned
a respectable construction company.

“No, shit,” Tyler commented.  “Good to have you
back, man.”  He shook Jerry’s hand, warmth radiating from his slanted blue eyes
that always seemed out of place with his almost-black hair.

“Well, hell, now that we’re all here, I say we do
some shots,” Milo said.

Jerry had a beer and two shots of Jack warming
his veins when he spotted Kimber walking through the door.  She stopped just
inside the bar and did a quick search until her gaze landed on him.  The sight
of his former fiancée dressed in a short black sundress and sexy heels kicked
him in the gut.  “Shit.”  He turned his back to her and downed the current shot
of whiskey sitting in front of him.  He might regret it later, but none of that
mattered now.

Milo turned to him, the other men still laughing
raucously at Scott’s joke about a blond hooker.  “What?”

“Nothing.”  He scanned the room, looking for a
quick save.  He doubted Kimber would have the guts to walk up and talk to him,
but he wasn’t taking any chances.  “I think I need to stretch my legs.  You
care if I ask Sierra to dance?”

“Why would I care?  It’s not like she’s my
girlfriend.”  Except Sierra and Milo
were
sort of a thing.  Not like a
real thing, but every weekend, they found themselves in each other’s arms,
dancing at Sparrow’s.  Jerry wasn’t sure if they’d ever taken it further than
that, and he wasn’t about to ask now.

“Great.”  He got to his feet, the room slightly
unsteady.  Luckily for him, only one table separated him from Sierra and her
friends.

He didn’t spare a glance toward the door as he
approached his target.  “Hey, Sierra.  Want to dance?”

Sierra turned her brown eyes toward him and
tilted her head.  “Wow.  Really?  Jerry Tierno is asking me to dance.  I should
feel honored.”

He snorted.  He and Sierra had always had that
sort of relationship.  He’d tossed a frog in her face in fifth grade, and she’d
snubbed him ever since.  “Come on, Sierra.  It’s only one dance.”

She smiled.  “Fine.  Maybe I’ll step on your toes
and pay you back for that frog.”

He led her to the dance floor, wrapping an arm
around her waist and taking her other hand in his.  “Are you still fretting about
that after all this time?”

She grinned up at him with a smirky smile.  “I
swore that day I’d never forgive you.”

“That was fifteen years ago.  How can you hold a
grudge for that long?”  Before she could answer, he shifted his gaze toward the
door.  Kimber stood with a bleak expression darkening her beautiful green eyes
as she stared at him.

A sharp pain on his big toe brought his focus
back to his dance partner.

“You aren’t even listening to me.”  Sierra
frowned.

“I’m sorry.  What?”

“I said, if you wouldn’t have spent all those
years staring at Kimber Reynolds, you would have realized I’d forgiven you a
long time ago.”

He laughed, giving her a sheepish grin.  “My
mistake.”  He glanced back to the door.

Sierra shifted in his arms.  “What are you
looking at?”  She snorted.  “Speak of the devil.”  She turned his focus back to
her with a finger.  “You two seeing each other again?”

“Nope.  Never.”  He forced a smile, hoping he
looked confident in what he said.

“Really?”  She smiled.  “It looks like she’s here
looking for you.”  She turned her gaze toward Kimber, and he wished he could
ask her to stop.  “I could get rid of her if you want me to.”

He froze, caught in his own trap.  “What do you
mean?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned in
close.  He thought she intended to whisper something in his ear, but the next
thing he knew, she’d placed her glossy, red lips on his.

Jerry hesitated for a second, caught totally off
guard, before he pulled away from Sierra.  He jerked his gaze back to Kimber
just in time to see a pained look on her face before she turned and walked out
the door.

“Ha!  It worked.”  Sierra grinned.  “You don’t
have to thank me.”

“But I do,” he lied as he pulled away from her.  He
couldn’t very well tell her exactly how pissed he was at the moment, or she’d
tell Milo, and then they’d all have him figured out.  “Why don’t you join us
and let me buy you a beer?”  It would get him out of her arms.  He’d used
Sierra to keep Kimber at a distance, not shove it in Kimber’s face.  Even if
she had deserved to see him with someone else, he was not that kind of guy.

“Okay.”  She let him lead her back to the table,
only to be greeted by a frowning Milo.

“I thought you said
dance
, man.  What’s up
with the kiss?”

Sierra planted herself on Milo’s lap.  “Don’t
worry, honey.  I was only doing a favor for a friend.”

Milo lifted a brow at Jerry.

“Kimber showed.”

“And I got rid of her,” Sierra added before she
placed her cherry lips on Milo’s for a wet kiss that had the rest of them
rolling their eyes.

“I guess I can live with that,” Milo said and
squeezed her waist.  “We should dance.  It’s our song.”

The band had switched to a country love song, and
it only took Milo and Sierra a few seconds before they were on the dance floor,
their bodies intimately moving as one.

“I need another beer,” Jerry called to the
passing waitress.  She nodded and continued on her way, carrying her tray of
empty bottles toward the bar.

“Can we talk?”

Every one of the men’s head snapped up at the
sound of Kimber’s voice.

Jerry slowly turned toward the beautiful voice
that had haunted his dreams many, many times.  When the hell had she come back
inside?  “I don’t think so.”  Everyone at the table silenced as a musky, rose
scent reached out and grabbed him like a shackle around his wrist.  He tried
not to breathe.

“Seriously?  You can’t give me the courtesy of five
minutes?”  She glanced at his friends, an awkward expression hovering in her
eyes, and he recognized his shield.  As long as he kept his friends close, he
was safe.